Offline Promotion is a great way to get your site noticed in your region, something you may or may not rely on in your business. It might not be important for a hardware review site to be known offline in a particular region but it might be for a business directory so consider what your target audience is before you invest in any of the techniques below, while they do work, they may not be for you. Having said that if you have the spare cash and time, more traffic never hurt.

Firstly you need to identify who you want to advertise too, as always your target audience dictates how and when you’ll be advertising. Does your website appeal to companies or individuals? What sort of person would benefit from using your website? Who’s going to pay to use your service?

Let’s say your website deals with business’ and home run companies, you’ll need to identify the best ways to get your adverts to them and here are some ideas;

Local Business Meetings
You’ll often find some organisation that brings business owners together in your region, go along and hand out your business card, make contacts and generate interest. At best you’ll make a lot of sales but at worst you’ll get some good advice.

Cold Calling
I would personally include letters, emails and phone calls that the recipient is not expecting as cold calling. Unless your product is unique and can save the customer a lot of money, 9 out of 10 ‘cold calls’ will result in a rejection. I’m sure you know how frustrating it is to get sales people calling you; you want to get off the phone as soon as possible. You can turn a cold call into a meeting or future business by being less forward and warming the recipient to you.

Instead of attempting to make a sale on first contact, explain what you do and if they would like to meet you’ll be able to explain how you can make or save them money. It’s more time consuming but far more effective than trying to make a hard sale, which in affect is bullying the customer into purchasing the product. Once you’ve made ‘the sale’ the first time you’ve built a solid relationship with the client and should lead to future business and recommendations.

Getting your name out to individuals

Sponsoring an Event.
Try finding public events that you can get your name out. If you offer to cove the cost of the printing of leaflets or flyers you’ll usually be allowed your name and logo on them and perhaps even your advert up at the venue on the day of the event. If your website is not directed at any particular geographical area, advertising at a large event in a big city is equally as effective.

Maximising event advertising
Lets face it, attractive girls handing out your flyers or samples is far more effective than you running around doing the same. You’ll find people are more receptive to pretty girls than a big sweaty man and people will actually look at what they’re handed. All the big companies know it and if you’ve been to one of the big trade shows, you’ll know it too!

Try and negotiate the best possible positioning for your adverts at the event, if there is a central point where activities are to take place, getting your logo around it like billboards at a football game is ideal.

Advertising in the Media
Adverts in the local publications is often relatively cheap and depending on the region, can be received by tens of thousands of people. The same goes for local radio but it might not be as effective, it’s unlikely the whole community will be listening to the same radio station the exact time your advert airs.

Most local newspapers will let you buy the right to have leaflets delivered with the newspaper but I’m not sure of the effectiveness of this. A lot of people won’t take any notice of these in my area but perhaps your local paper is more respectable!

So there you are, so ideas to try out, if you’ve got any suggestions leave a comment and let me know!
Perhaps you’ve tried some of these before, were the effective or not? Is there a better way to carry them out?